A Nest of Nightmares (Paperbacks from Hell)

I love that Valancourt Books is re-releasing all these great horror classics from the 70s and 80s. I have been on a mission to read the ones I have missed the first time around. If you also missed out or were too young back in the heyday of horror I strongly recommend checking out all that is available from Valancourt. A Nest of Nightmares contains 13 short stories originally published in 1986. They feel surprisingly timeless other than one person's desperate need to make a phone call which made that particular story feel dated, though anyone who survived the years without a cell phone will still understand what it was like to not have constant and instant access to make a call. The stories are quite dark and more than one tale focuses on the dissolution of a relationship, where the horror is perhaps the feeling of being left out, abandoned, forgotten and lost. There is the conventional creature feature type horror, and haunted objects and a weirdly current feeling in the tale of a woman looking forward to the fence she's heard they are building to keep people from getting into the country from Mexico. There were only a couple of stories that missed the mark with me. I would recommend this to all who enjoy short horror stories with unexpected endings.